Effects of Community-Based Group-Home Treatment Programs on Male Juvenile Offenders′ Use and Abuse of Drugs and Alcohol

The research literature suggests that adolescents placed in residential programs due to their delinquent behavior are at high risk for drug and alcohol use and abuse. Research is rare, however, on the effects of residential delinquency-treatment programs on drug- and alcohol-related behaviors. This study examined the comparative effects of community-based, group-home, delinquency-treatment programs in Kansas on participants′ self-report measures of drug and alcohol use and abuse, and of some prosocial behaviors. The results indicated that youths (n = 82) participating in group homes using the broadly disseminated Teaching-Family approach had better during-treatment outcomes than youths (n = 103) participating in a set of comparison group homes. Corroboratively, a sample of Teaching-Family youths (n = 28) also had better during-treatment outcomes than a matched no-treatment comparison group of their friends (n = 28), while, in contrast, a sample of youths (n = 33) in the comparison group homes did not diff...